The present invention relates generally to vending machines and more particularly to a manual vending machine of a type designed primarily to dispense boxed products such as laundry detergent.
One of the main problems associated with vending machines in general is the one of providing a positive ejection of the item to be dispensed when such vending machine is actuated by the proper amount of money. Another of the problems associated with vending machines in general has been that sometimes when the vending machine is actuated to release an item, a second item is released along with the first item, thereby causing the vending machine to receive less money than was due and the customer to receive more product than was deserving for the particular amount of money inserted into the machine. Furthermore, once certain shortcomings are known to customers with respect to a particular vending machine, then pilferage becomes a problem.
It has been determined that if an item being dispensed is tipped over during the process that there is more of a likelihood that a second item which has not been paid for will inadvertently be ejected into the discharge chute along with the item to be vended. Consequently, there is a need for structures which will prevent the item to be dispensed from tipping over during the dispensing thereof.
Another problem associated with boxed products such as laundry detergents is that when they are stacked one on top of another, the edges of adjacent boxes may become locked at the edges thereof. This detracts from the task of positively ejecting the one item to be dispensed and can cause the problem of either not allowing the item to be moved out of the holding chamber or it can possibly jam the mechanism consequently causing the vending machine to be inoperative until opened and manually cleared. It is furthermore well known that a vending machine which operates in a dependable fashion is likely to be the subject of less physical abuse by the customers thereof than one which has shown a tendency to be easily pilfered or which does not deliver the product which it is supposed to deliver when actuated in a proper fashion.